The Marriage He Must Keep (10 page)

She closed her eyes, needing this moment to collect herself. That had been raw and voracious. Alarming. They’d never been like that before. It made her a little frightened for when they
could
make love again. They might shred each other to pieces.

“It hurts,” he said gruffly. The hand low on her spine pressed just enough to make her aware of the iron-hard muscle digging into her tender abdomen. “It hurts to touch you and not have you. To smell your hair and feel you against me and kiss without having the rest. It damned well
hurts
, Octavia. That’s why I stayed away. But I’m not letting you leave me.”

Fine trembles gripped her as she tried to think and couldn’t. She just wanted to feel. She wanted him. She wanted to believe this was something they could build on.

“You haven’t even said you’re sorry,” she managed to say, forcing herself to pull back enough to see him. Pathetic as she was, she needed his support to stand, even as her voice cracked with suffering.

Remorse convulsed his features.

“I am sorry.” It wasn’t an apology. He wasn’t trying to convince her. It was a statement. “Deeply sorry. I took you for granted and underestimated my cousin. But how can I ask your forgiveness when I’ll never forgive myself?”

She’d never heard that particular scrape in his voice before. Never seen such a bleak, devastating anguish leech out all the green to completely gray his eyes. His fingers on her arms were gentle, but she felt pain from them.
His
pain.

An urge to comfort pressed her heart toward him, giving her a flat, aching sensation against the inner wall of her chest. She wanted to tell him it was all right, but it wasn’t. And he knew it. He felt it. He wasn’t as oblivious as she feared, which filled her with that wretched, misguided hope that kept sparkling before her like a lure.

He very tenderly caressed her cheek, fingertips smoothing her hair back and tracing a line down her jaw. The backs of his knuckles grazed under her chin and down the delicate, pulsing cords in her throat.

“We’ll save sleeping together for when we reach Italy. I want you to rest as much as you can while we’re here. Heal.” His touch, the look in his eyes, made it sound as though he wanted more than physical repair for her. As though he understood her heart was fractured and needed time.

The first tendrils of mending began as she glimpsed the man who’d turned her inside out on a three-week honeymoon, concerned and focused and with a touch like magic, thumb grazing her bottom lip so it felt puffy and incapable of anything but kissing.

Their next course came, but they just stood there, looking into each other’s eyes. After a long moment, he dropped one more very, very gentle kiss on her mouth and slowly released her, leaving her burning as he drew her back to their table.

CHAPTER SEVEN

S
HE
WENT
TO
Naples with him. They landed three weeks later and went straight to see his grandfather at the Castello di Ferrante.

The
castello
would be Alessandro’s one day, but all of his extended family came and went, treating it as a hotel. A few members were more or less permanent, something Octavia privately viewed as squatting. Alessandro’s youngest sister had been one of them until recently, before her modeling career took off. Now she might have a room here, but she spent most of her time in Milan, Paris and New York.

From the few times they’d spoken, Octavia had liked all of her husband’s sisters, but the older two had families of their own and lived in other parts of the country so she didn’t see them often. Alessandro had far more cousins than she did and was close with many of them. It was an odd dynamic for her to have been thrust into since most of her father’s siblings had emigrated to America and Australia before she was born and her mother was standoffish with her side. Octavia had grown up in a familial void made worse by being an only child. It had made her feel like an anomaly in her own country, where big dinners and frequent reunions were the norm.

She’d always wanted to feel a part of a warm, gregarious family and suspected she would turn into the clichéd Italian mother doting on her son into his forties, but for now she was still daunted by the many-stranded web of Alessandro’s blood ties.

And she had never been able to see herself as the matriarch of that network and this house. Whenever she came here to the
castello
, she felt like a very temporary, barely tolerated guest.

She loved the place all the same.

As they began the climb that wound through the lower portion of the vineyard, she took in the beauty of the estate. Even in winter it was covered in the lush confusion of the estate manager’s intensive farming techniques. With the land so fertile, Alessandro’s grandfather put every speck of dirt to work. Olive trees bordered the rows of grapes. Beneath the orange trees, the lavender had been cut back for winter. Garlic and runner beans would soon spring up in the lemon grove. Strawberries, their leaves faded by winter, surrounded the fig trees and the stacked plots where the tomatoes and basil would grow were freshly turned and ready.

Then the house rose to its full glory. Its yellow stone and red-tiled roof held a matte finish in the weak sunlight, but its sprawling wings and elegant balconies were as aristocratic as ever. It was gracefully aged, never old.

The driver pulled the SUV to a stop in a crunch of gravel between the fountain and the wide front steps. They were keeping the protection of a security team as a precaution, but Bree was quick to leap from the front seat and scan the layered balconies and small terraces across the upper levels of the
castello
. She was only four years younger than Octavia, but made her feel ancient.

Octavia bumped knuckles with Alessandro as they both tried to release the baby from the straps of his car seat.

“I’ll do it,” Alessandro said, but caught her hand. “Rings still don’t fit?”

“I didn’t try them this morning. Too tired,” she said truthfully, disturbed as he gave her fingers a gentle massage, trickling warmth through her.

She knew what he was doing with all these seemingly absent caresses; he’d done the same thing in the weeks leading up to their wedding night. It was a type of calculated seduction and she wished she didn’t respond to it, but she did. He was gorgeous in a three-piece suit and tie, while she felt dowdy in a wrap dress and low heels, her makeup applied hastily on the plane to try to disguise the circles under her eyes.

“Things will be calmer now we’re home,” he promised.

Except they weren’t home. They were staying here at the
castello
, through his grandfather’s birthday, before they would finally return to the town house in a week or so to properly start their life afresh.

She wished she had as much confidence in their marriage now as she’d had going into it nearly a year ago. Ignorance was bliss, she supposed, because today she held a lot of trepidation for the gauntlet that had to be endured here and the return to the life she’d failed to master the first time around.

But Alessandro meant that being away from his mother would be more peaceful.

Octavia missed her already and hadn’t wanted to leave London, but Ysabelle had been leaving to see her count anyway. Besides, every time Octavia had decided she didn’t want to come to Italy with Alessandro, he’d done something considerate like take Lorenzo when he was fussing or brought her something to eat or drink when she sat down to nurse. It had been a lot easier to resent him when they’d been apart. When he was near, handsome and attentive, dropping little kisses and caresses on her, she slipped back into blind adoration.

More important, even though he happily handed off diaper duty to the nanny, she had observed him showing a sincere attachment to their son. This morning she’d overheard their man-to-man chat about world markets and which investments to avoid for the next year. It amused her all over again thinking of it. He’d sounded so serious, asking Lorenzo for his opinion on the matter.

So there was one fact she couldn’t deny in all of this: Lorenzo deserved to have his father in his life.

Which meant she had to find her place in Alessandro’s.

No matter how daunting the prospect.

She drew a long, subtle breath as the
maggiordomo
came out the open doors of the
castello
and down the stairs. He greeted her with one of his polite nods. “The family is eager to meet the new arrival, Signora. They’re waiting in the front parlor.”

Wonderful
. Octavia found a smile.

Alessandro came around the car with Lorenzo bundled in one arm. He held out his free hand to her, sparing a moment to offer her a steady look. Gratitude? Pride? She wasn’t sure how to interpret it.

She swallowed, unsteady as they climbed the stairs and entered together.

The first time they’d come here, fresh off their honeymoon, Primo’s sister had taunted Alessandro for not carrying her over the threshold. Alessandro had dismissed the remark, stating it was his grandfather’s house and not appropriate.

Octavia hadn’t said anything, but Alessandro hadn’t performed the whimsical ceremony at the town house, either, and his overlooking of the gesture had felt like a put-down. It had been the first hard landing into reality after the giddy spell of lovemaking and basking in his attention. She’d never been able to walk through this door without thinking of his dismissive tone and how harshly it reminded her that their marriage was a business transaction, not something based on sentiment or affection.

And here she was again. Not Octavia, the woman he loved and carried into his family home, but the consigned wife he’d pressured to accompany him. If that wasn’t lukewarm enough, she nearly caught frostbite from the group that greeted them. She nervously scanned the faces, so many of them Primo’s closest relations, including Primo’s parents.

Was it paranoid, now that Primo’s subterfuges were exposed, to see all this occupancy of the
castello
in a new light? She took a half step closer to her husband, disturbed.

One of Alessandro’s spinster aunts, a flighty wisp of a woman who preferred her paints over just about anything else and usually took no interest in enigmatic things like children, was the first to speak.

“Handsome. Like his father,” she pronounced after a brief look at Lorenzo.

Primo’s eldest sister, Donna, who had moved in with her teenage son last year said, “Don’t be too sure,
Zia
. Perhaps this baby mix-up was an attempt to hide the fact neither of the infants are Ferrantes. Did you think of that, Sandro?”

Barely a minute in and the claws were out. Of course, it was to be expected that Primo’s parents and sisters would defend their kin, but Octavia was struck by the open enmity in her remark. She and Donna might not have been friends, but they hadn’t been adversaries. She pressed even closer to her husband and felt his grip on her hand tighten.

“He’s ours,” Alessandro confirmed, low and sure, practically daring anyone to contradict him.

“Bring him to me,” Ermanno Ferrante said with an imperious wave of his hand.

He wasn’t a tall man. His children and grandchildren towered over him, but he was still spry and sharp-eyed despite his weathered skin and steel-gray hair. He sat with the arrogantly regal posture that Alessandro must have learned from him, because they both had the ability to command a room with a look.

Alessandro tugged Octavia with him as he carried Lorenzo across. She could feel Ermanno’s gaze drilling into her as she approached. He was capable of the same force and power that Alessandro possessed, but what was he looking for? Artifice? Proof? Guilt?

“Nonno, your great-grandson Lorenzo,” Alessandro said, leaning down to kiss his grandfather and set the baby in the old man’s arms.

Octavia would have kissed him in greeting, too, but the old man bent his head to give the baby a long, thorough study.

Behind her, she heard a few feet shuffle as everyone awaited his judgment.

“He looks like your father,” he said with a glance up to Alessandro. Then he nodded his head toward the side table. “Bring the photo.”

Octavia’s knees nearly gave in as she moved to fetch the black-and-white of Alessandro’s grandmother holding her firstborn and she had to agree, there was a strong similarity in the babies’ sleeping features. It was bittersweet to see the resemblance, making her see her son’s place in this family while reinforcing that she couldn’t take him away from it.

“You’ll understand if we’re not happy,” Viviana, Primo’s youngest sister, said.

“Babies make everyone happy.” Alessandro pivoted, voice light with contradiction, but his tone held an edge that put a knot in Octavia’s stomach.

“We’re not happy with the things you’ve done, Sandro,” Viviana clarified, chin coming up in belligerence.

“I’ve done exactly what I’m supposed to do—react to threats and limit damage,” he said without apology. “Nonno, Octavia and the baby need to rest. I’ll settle them in our apartment, then we can talk in the office.
Zio,
you may join us if you like. I imagine you have a few questions.”

Primo’s father, Giacomo, made a noise as if he had a lot more than a
few
questions about his son being arrested and fired and expelled from the family residences. Octavia felt the blister of hostility off everyone in the room, much of it aimed at her.

So she bit back saying that she wasn’t
that
tired. The past few nights had been rough ones sleepwise, but her incision was itchy rather than tender and physically she was starting to feel like her old self.

But this was too awful to endure. She let Alessandro take her up to the suite they always used. He went through to the sitting room where a temporary nursery had been arranged. Bree took Lorenzo and Alessandro came back to their bedroom, closing the door behind him.

“I want to go to the town house,” Octavia said firmly. There was no way she could sleep here. The verdant estate was beautiful and the view gave way to a distant scape of the city against the smudged blue of the bay, but antagonistic waves penetrated the walls and floors.

“Putting off this confrontation will only make it worse.” He unbent her folded arms and stole her light coat, tossing it to a chair and nudging her toward the bed. “But can you see that if I had left you in London, they would have held you in suspicion? By bringing you back to face them, you’re showing them you’re blameless.” He pressed her shoulder to sit on the edge of the bed, then he bent to pick up her feet, tipping her onto her side while he removed her shoes. “Once I make it clear that
I
fired Primo and the hospital is pressing charges, as well, they won’t hold you accountable.”

“I’ve never known you to be delusional, Sandro,” she said on a dry laugh. “If they didn’t warm up to me in the past, they certainly won’t now.”

He paused in reaching for the blanket folded on the foot of the bed.

“What did you say?”

“That you’re being optimistic. If it was just me, I could take their dislike, but I’m scared for Lorenzo. I realize he doesn’t even know what he’s in the middle of, but—”

“This is
for
Lorenzo, but no. What did you call me?” He dropped the blanket and sat his hip next to hers on the mattress.

His weight rolled her into him and a funny self-consciousness washed over her. “They all call you Sandro. I didn’t think you minded if I did.”

“You haven’t called me that in months.” His hand went to the outside of her thigh, light but familiar, making tingles fan out from the spot across her abdomen and down to her knee and inward to her loins.

She shifted, but he didn’t let the movement dislodge his hand.

“I didn’t notice,” she murmured. Avoiding his nickname hadn’t been a conscious decision and she couldn’t believe it mattered to him either way. The fact that he was remarking on it now made her use of the familiarity seem overly significant and intimate. She looked away, gaze scanning the ceiling for somewhere safe to land, but he lifted his hand off her hip and touched her chin, drawing her to look back at him.

The moment grew even more momentous for no reason at all. Neither of them spoke, but it was as if she’d opened a door and a million emotions had flooded in.

He
was coming into her. And he took up a lot of space.

She desperately wished she could backpedal, but she couldn’t. All she could do was close her eyes in an attempt to shut him out. “I am tired,” she lied.

The mattress shifted and his breath warmed her lips before he kissed her.

She almost lifted a hand, wanting to draw it out. Her lips clung, but he kept the contact brief.

“We will get through this,
cara
,” he said, making it sound like a vow.

He stood and opened the blanket across her, letting it drift down in a puff of air and a layer of softness and warmth.